


I have you to save my day

by Doranwen



Category: The Matrix (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:53:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21817717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doranwen/pseuds/Doranwen
Summary: He can't be dead, she told herself,he can't be.
Relationships: Thomas Anderson | Neo/Trinity
Comments: 12
Kudos: 47
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	I have you to save my day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SkyTintedWater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyTintedWater/gifts).



"Neo, I want to tell you something," Trinity began, "but I'm afraid of what it could mean if I do." Her heart felt ready to pound out of her chest as she looked into Neo's eyes. "Everything the Oracle told me has come true—everything but this."

"But what?" Neo asked.

He had no idea, Trinity thought, her heart quavering. She could only stare at him, frozen in place. She finally realized the phone was ringing, and she reached out a hand for the receiver as she stepped into the booth.

Some instinct made her duck suddenly, as a bullet pierced the glass where her head would have been. She dove out of the phone booth into a roll, dodging bullets the whole way. "Run!" she screamed at Neo, and he followed her as they pounded up the steps, zig-zagging as they went. A bullet whizzed past her arm, close enough to feel the breeze. She veered sharply to the right upon exiting, Neo close on her heels.

She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed. "Exit?" she gasped, out of breath and not daring to slow down.

Tank's voice was a welcome sound in her ear. "Got a patch on an old exit, Wabash and Lake. Heart O' the City Hotel, Room 303."

"Thanks." She snapped the phone shut and tucked it away as she continued to run.

As soon as she could spot a path that would take them away from people, she took it. In the Matrix, the more crowded a place, the more nervous she always was. With them running pell-mell in all-black leather, they'd attract agents in no time, and Smith had to be close on their heels, though she hadn't spotted him once they left the subway station.

Trinity led Neo through an alley, into a dingy apartment building, up a flight of stairs, and down the fire escape down the other side, where they leapt into a pile of reeking garbage. The abandoned hotel was just around the corner—but so were the other two agents. _Where's Smith?_ she wondered for a fraction of a second before a bullet zinged off the wall next to her head and she put on an extra burst of speed. Neo did the same, passing her up. "Room 303," she told him, breathless, and he acknowledged it with a slight duck of the head as he bounded up the wall onto the fire escape just ahead of her. He waited only a fraction of a second to grab her hand and make sure she arrived on the platform before turning to climb.

Bullets flew through the air as they scaled the fire escape ladder, striking everywhere but them, it seemed. By her cheek, a hair away from her left arm, next to a foot… They ricocheted off metal rungs and gouged furrows into concrete walls.

"End of the hallway to the right," she called out as they entered the building. She followed Neo through the dark corridor, still at a full run. Her calf muscles ached from the intense strain. _It's not real, it's all in your head_ , she reminded herself, and made her legs keep going. She could hear the telephone ringing as they approached the door for room 303.

Ahead of her, Neo opened the door and stopped short. Trinity's breath caught in her throat when she saw Smith standing there, a gun pointed directly at Neo's heart. _No, oh please, no_ , she thought. Hadn't she lost enough already? They had rescued Morpheus, they were almost safe - not now! All of this ran through her head in a split second - and then came the flash and bang.

 _Nononononono_ protested her mind as she watched him clutch his chest. Her muscles were frozen in place as she watched the gun go off a second time. Neo stumbled backwards, slumping against the hallway. Trinity felt as if the whole day were one long horror movie that she couldn't escape. She couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't even scream the pain and fear and rage she felt as she watched. She wanted to step in front of the gun herself, kick it out of the way, fight Smith… but the gun sounded again and again, emptying bullets into Neo's chest, and he collapsed to the ground, closing his eyes.

 _He can't be dead_ , she told herself, _he can't be._ She knelt at his side in disbelief. "Neo?" she whispered, placing two fingers at his throat.

"He's gone," said Smith. "Say goodbye." He raised the gun again.

Ice-cold fury poured through her veins. "No." Trinity was barely aware of herself as she quietly spoke the word. She found herself watching the world slip into code around her, characters running in green lines over everything. They outlined the figure of Smith, and of the other two agents approaching from either end of the hallway. Drawing on instincts she didn't know she possessed, she slipped a hand into the characters that made up Neo's body, pulling out each bullet. A tiny part of her felt a gun release another bullet behind her, and halted it midair. Her hand squeezed Neo's heart, pumping it till she somehow could see it beating again. The part of her that watched from a little corner of her mind saw her hands literally hold Neo's life in her own with awe. What had she become? She withdrew her hand and watched him for a moment; the world remained in code as she saw his head move to face her.

She stood, gripping one of Neo's hands and pulling him to his feet. She turned to find the bullets still frozen in place. She plucked one out of the air to examine it curiously, decided it wasn't important, then dropped it and strode forward. Smith stood in the doorway between her and the phone, which she could hear ringing. "Out of my way," she snarled at him. He rushed at her, trying to fight her, but the world seemed to go into slow motion. She blocked every punch and kick easily, till she tired of the interchange and simply stepped forward.

She would never be able to describe to anyone else the way the world looked as she stepped into the agent's skin. She could feel the code around her breaking apart, splintering and shattering into fragments that flew outwards until she stood in the doorway, Neo right behind her. She turned to look at the other two agents, clenching her fists, and feeling the walls ripple around her. Everything felt like an extension of her fingertips, and the power flooded her skin. Something of that must have shone through her eyes, for the agents looked at each other and bolted in opposite directions.

The phone continued jangling, and she strode towards it, motioning Neo to pick it up first. At this point, she wasn't taking any chances. He disappeared, and she waited for the phone to ring again, wondering what this meant. The Oracle had told her she would fall in love with the One. How did this fit the prophecy? None of it made any sense. She welcomed the ringing as a respite from the confusion in her head, and the world around her vanished to be replaced with chaos. Laser beams from squiddies tore across the deck and Neo crouched at her side, flinging his body across hers as they approached.

"Now, Tank!" Morpheus shouted.

Tank flipped the EMP switch and the deck plunged into darkness. Metal screeched and clanged loudly as the bodies of the machines dropped to the deck, and the electricity tore through the port at the back of her head with a painful jolt, locking her neck muscles and making her arms twitch involuntarily. Then there was nothing but silence for a long moment.

"Trinity?" she heard Neo whisper.

She reached up to find his face, cupping his cheek and bringing his lips down to meet hers. "I love you," she said in a voice too quiet to carry more than a foot. Neo, breathing in her own breath, leaned forward and answered her with another kiss. Neo reached around her chair and pulled the port out of her head before dipping down for another kiss, which was interrupted by the sound of a throat clearing.

Morpheus stood a few feet away holding a lantern, which illuminated his face and cast shadows on the wrecked core. "What happened?"

Neo stood, letting Trinity sit up and rise to her feet. "I don't know. I didn't think about anything except that Neo was dead, and I wasn't going to let that be so." She shrugged helplessly. How could she explain it? "The Oracle told me I would fall in love with the One, not…" She gestured vaguely at Neo, at a loss for words.

"She told you what you needed to hear," Neo said, echoing Morpheus' words from the rooftop earlier that day.

Was it really that simple? She'd spent her life waiting for a man she could love, someone who would save them, and she was the One all along? She sighed and decided to change the subject. "What damage did we take?" She could think about it later; being the One in the Matrix didn't give her any power in the real world to fix the Nebuchadnezzar magically, and they'd have to get on it right away so they could move to a safer location for the night.

* * *

"So you're the One after all," Neo said softly into the darkness of the room where Trinity and he were lying on her bed, buried under a pile of blankets to ward off the chill of the night.

Trinity lay against his chest, relishing the feel of his warm arms around her, and the sound of his heart beating. She had lost him today. And then she had gotten him back. "Are you upset? I mean, Morpheus said you were—"

"No, never." His arms tightened around her. "I won't worry about you in the Matrix now."

And she would never stop worrying about him, she realized. The scenes from that day raced through her mind, images of the bullet tearing through Neo's chest, watching his body crumple to the floor. Her heart skipped a beat, and she had to force herself to take a deep breath. She consoled herself with listening to the steady thump-thump from his chest.

"What's next?" Neo asked.

"I don't know," she admitted softly. "I don't know where to go from here."

"That's okay," he whispered back, "we'll figure it out together."

* * *

_One month later_

"You lied to me," Trinity accused from her standing position in the Oracle's kitchen. She tried to ignore the tempting spicy-sweet aroma of the freshly-baked molasses cookies being pulled out of the oven.

The Oracle slipped a couple cookies onto a plate and held them out to Trinity, showing no sign of surprise when Trinity made no motion to take one. "Suit yourself," she said, laying the plate on the table nearby before turning to face Trinity directly. "And if I had told you you were the One, back when you were a 16-year-old teenager who had just hacked into the IRS in the last six months, what would you have done?"

The question stopped Trinity in her tracks, and she took her time before answering. "I would have taken risks—risks that I didn't dare take as just another Resistance fighter."

"Bingo. And you would have been dead within a month."

A chill ran through Trinity at those words.

"Besides, you need Neo, just like he needs you. Tell me," said the Oracle, "what caused you to finally discover the full depths of your power in the Matrix?"

"When Neo was dead."

"And you weren't going to let that happen, were you?" The Oracle smiled and then turned to put a couple of the cookies in a bag. "Give these to Neo; he's waiting for you."

**Author's Note:**

> I read your prompt about "What if Trinity were the One instead", and I remembered reading [a fic where that was discussed](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11530455), and this happened. The following line from that fic haunted me as I wrote: "There's a version of this where Neo lived, not because he was The One, but because you realized you were." I hope you enjoyed this alternative scenario!


End file.
